Haiti: Report indicts U.S. government and IDB for violations of the rights to clean water and health

“In 1998, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) awarded $54 million in loans to the Haitian government to improve the country’s patchwork, crumbling public-water system. The money was intended to bring clean water to people who for many years had been denied this basic human right, with devastating consequences for public health. Ten years later, however, this desperately needed money has not produced a single improvement to Haiti’s water supply in the city designated to be one of the first recipients”.

On 23 June 2008, Partners In Health – along with its Haitian sister organization Zanmi Lasante, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center – released the 87-page report “Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti” in New York City.

The report “reveals the United States government’s clandestine efforts to ensure that political considerations (namely the desire to destabilize Haiti’s elected government at that time, led by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide) took precedence over the rights of some of the planet’s poorest and most vulnerable people”.

“In the 10 years since the loans were approved, the Haitian water system has actually gotten worse. In 2002, a water-poverty index released by the British-based Centre for Ecology and Hydrology ranked Haiti dead last out of 147 countries surveyed”.

The investigative team that produced the report “worked for six years to bring the story of the IDB loans to light. During that time, Haiti’s water system continued to deteriorate. The report states that:

* Public water systems are rarely available throughout the year and close to 70 percent of the population lacks direct access to potable water at all times
* The percentage of the population without access to safe drinking water has increased by at least seven percent from 1990 to 2005
* Infectious diarrhea was the second leading cause of death in Haiti in 1999, and gastrointestinal infection was the leading cause of mortality for young children. These preventable diseases result primarily from unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation”.

Read more: Tom Spoth, Partners in Health, Jun 2008